Vox Clara

From The Tablet:
World Church News - 19 March 2005
Rome

Vox Clara clears way for new text. The Vatican-sponsored Vox Clara Committee, the ad-hoc group of 12 English-speaking bishops charged with ensuring a more literal translation of Latin liturgical texts, has noted “impressive improvements” in the most recent texts submitted by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

While Vox Clara was officially set up in 2001 to “give advice to the Congregation regarding matters of liturgical translations of Latin liturgical texts into the English language”, its role was never entirely clear. There has always been confusion as to whether its purpose was to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship or whether it might have the final say on translations. Some have suggested its real purpose was to “rein in” ICEL (which has overseen all the official English translations for Catholic worship over the past 42 years) and “transform” it into a commission that would produce texts more appealing to the Vatican. The positive message released after Vox Clara’s seventh gathering – held in Rome from 8-10 March – is a further signal that the committee has pretty much completed the job.

Although the Vox Clara committee, chaired by the Australian Cardinal George Pell, is scheduled to meet again in Rome in July, it is now believed to have sufficient trust in the work of ICEL and could, in practice, allow the commission to oversee the missal’s translation without further need to be involved.

As one source told The Tablet: “They’ve successfully turned ICEL into what they wanted in the first place, so they [Vox Clara] probably just close down.”

A press release at the end of the Vox Clara meeting said: “The committee was provided with a copy of the latest revision of ICEL’s translation of a selection of prayers from the Proper of Seasons in the Missale Romanum.” The Roman Missal is the collection of prayers used at Mass. The third Latin edition of the missal, issued in 2002, is still to be translated into a Vatican-approved English edition. “The timely completion of an English-language edition of the Missale Romanum remains the highest priority,” the press release said, but no one is willing to put a projected date on its publication. Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, a member of the Vox Clara committee, told the National Catholic Reporter he thought it would be at least three more years – and that sounded optimistic. “The members urged that all possible resources should be devoted to the expeditious completion of a vernacular edition which is at once precise in its rendering of the Latin texts and appropriate for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in English,” the communiqué continued.

Robert Mickens, Rome


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Vox Clara Members, from a Vox Clara press release (November, 2004):

The Vox Clara Committee is chaired by Cardinal George Pell, Sydney (Australia). Present at this meeting were Members Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb, Mobile (USA), who serves as First Vice-Chairman, Archbishop Oswald Gracias, Agra (India), who serves as Second Vice-Chairman; Cardinal Justin Rigali, Philadelphia (USA), who serves as Treasurer; Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Westminster (England), who serves as Secretary; Archbishop Alfred Hughes, New Orleans (USA); Archbishop Peter Kwasi Sarpong, Kumasi (Ghana); Archbishop Kelvin Felix, Castries (Saint Lucia), and Archbishop Terence Prendergast, S.J., Halifax (Canada); and Bishop Philip Boyce, O.C.D., Raphoe (Ireland). Other Members of the Committee, though not present at the meeting, are Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I., Chicago (USA); and Bishop Rolando Tria Tirona, O.C.D., Prelate of Infanta (Philippines). In attendance were the following Advisors to the Committee: Monsignor Gerard McKay (Rome), Abbot Cuthbert Johnson, O.S.B. (England), Reverend Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B. (USA), Professor Dennis McManus (USA), and Monsignor James P. Moroney (USA).